All mixed up john prince siddon - all mixed up - Dedication, 2019 - Fremantle Arts Centre

all mixed up
john prince siddon

   Dedication, 2019

                      John Prince Siddon

All Mixed Up: Tru

Welcome to the world of John Prince Siddon;                    Like many men from the Kimberley, Prince spent his early
the road is rough yet paved with gold.                         years working on cattle stations, until he lost his leg in
                                                               a horse-riding accident. They said he would never walk
A man of many pasts, elusively literal, joyfully macabre       again: he has been walking ever since. After the accident
and terribly concerned with the politics of our time. Where    he discovered art,
fantasy is lore and myth stems from reality; inside Prince’s
studio in the heart of Fitzroy Crossing, 400 kilometres east   “Once I learnt to paint, I just couldn’t stop”.
of Broome in the remote West Kimberley region of Western
Australia.                                                     Avoiding explicit narration of specific Narrangkarni, the
                                                               concepts and knowledge embedded in Prince’s work
For Prince ‘myth’ loosely correlates to the First Nation’s     contextualise ancient principles for the modern world.
concept of Narrangkarni (Dreamtime), which is fixed,           Walmajarri’s cosmology can be seen as a grand morality
through systems of lore. Reality then, is a combination        tale for the times we find ourselves in; visions of a future
of TV, radio, ‘the outside world’ and Fitzroy Crossing         which respects and integrates Indigenous practices, and
community life (or, ‘the inside world’).                       avoids the environmental devastation that we have seen in
                                                               recent years.
The line in the sand moves again.
                                                               The clues are there within his technicolour occult where
This dog-eat-dog world we live in; life, death, morality,      desert iconography surfaces, often encrypted and in
mortality, incineration, judgment, reformation, rebirth –      uncanny places.
Prince always puts you somewhere on the edge, in viewing
his work you’re usually left somewhere between elation         All Mixed Up encourages you to play Prince’s universal
and anxiety.                                                   tarot; pick an icon, pick an image; every time you will see
                                                               something new. To decipher these fragmented realities,
And yet, I can see his wry smile.                              the works demand repeated viewings, and even then new
                                                               insights emerge, dreamlike, while others fade: the man
Mangkaja Arts is a significant Kimberley organisation          vomiting a snake; the man from Snowy River; a kangaroo
rooted in advocacy and opportunity for the multiple            ocean mirage; spider union jack; wheelchairs; boat people;
language groups of the Fitzroy Valley region. It supports      footless people; cockroaches; ScoMo; lizards wielding
five different language groups including Bunuba, Nyikina       spears.
and Gooniyandi of Martuwarra (River Country), and
Walmajarri and Wangkajunga from the jilji, (Sand-hill           “Go back and read it properly”, he told me. That I did,
Desert Country).                                               realising I had missed a whole point within a four word text.

Originally from the Great Sandy Desert, Walmajarri             All Mixed Up (2019) is a literal mix of icons, blending diverse
people were displaced and relocated through systems            Australian cultures, Kimberley communities and current
of colonisation, often used as unpaid labour on cattle         politics. For the most part, his message is light, yet
stations across the region. Prince is a Walmajarri man         sinister. The giant HMAS Sydney with its pointed cannon
whose father Pompey Siddon was one of the founding             protruding from Ned Kelly’s pants confirms this.
members of Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency. From
1981, until the organisation became incorporated in 1993,      Fear, (2019) and Escape, (2019) do the same. Yes, the
Mangkaja (a Walmajarri word for ‘shelter’ or ‘gathering        animals are all going to die in the fire, yes, it’s about
together’) operated from a small building near the             life and death, but when we think of Indigenous land
highway. Led by local men, Mangkaja was a place where          management strategies, this work is also about renewal
people could study and paint their personal stories, bush      and regeneration. It is about ancient principles and ways
trips and histories. Many stockmen were laid off after the     of being that we, the coloniser, have tried to destroy;
introduction of Equal Wages legislation and were forced        knowledge and practices which now make perfect sense in
to the fringes of Fitzroy Crossing. Displaced from their       the face of catastrophic devastation.
traditional homelands, the many cultural groups forged
new ways of working together.

The Kimberley has seen many decades of environmental             Right now we find ourselves at a political turning point. As
destruction including introduced livestock, cane toads,          people we are changing, yet our shifting consciousness,
bull grass, camels, foreign land management and damming          our new awareness, is being resisted by the leaders of
– it all seems so silly, dunnit?                                 our Country. For many Australians, the true history of our
                                                                 country has never been taught.
When we think about deep time and the epic creation of
our cosmos, we have destroyed our own natural habitat            Indigenous art has always run parallel to history books,
and the home of all living things in the blink of an eye. This   documenting our nation and a history of Country which
universal concern manifests in Prince’s work. He is not          continues to be under the custodianship of Indigenous
angry: he wants us all to look after each other, to work this    peoples. Prince is part of a long tradition of Kimberley
out together.                                                    painters who see truth telling, communicating their
                                                                 personal history and lived experiences, as a matter of
In One Punch Mob (2019), Prince worries about brutality,         urgency. In the works of Rover Thomas, Ben Ward, Mervyn
using the tropes of colonialism, cow skull and leather, as       Street, David Downs or Tommy Ngarralja May, paintings of
mediums. He says, “This work is about power; I can still         the Narrangkarni cannot be separated from the politics of
hear women screaming. Little kids crying, women ending           place, of recent history and contemporary reality.
up in hospital, they have nobody to mind them while their
mum is in hospital badly hurt. You see them on TV news,          Prince’s work is urgent – magnificently meshing
those one punch victims. Ends up badly, one punch can kill       two incongruent worlds into a “mixed up” version
you!”                                                            of Australia. In his words, “we mixed up, tru, let’s
                                                                 keep it that way!”
Painfully serious, familiar yet unfamiliar, the
lightness and the darkness, allured yet confused –               All Mixed Up, challenges traditional and conservative
as I unravel these works, I feel more twisted.                   notions of Indigenous painting and disrupts our notions
                                                                 of Australian contemporary art. Creating links between
The 1967 referendum was not that long ago. Many                  space, time and history, Prince references our shared past
artists have told me over the years that they feel the           offering a unique and critical voice in these challenging
Kimberley was forged off the back of slave labour, and           times – a time of intellectual revolution, a time when the
that the wealth of the state can be tied to the Indigenous       dominant narratives are being questioned. Prince’s work
workforce that built it and were never remunerated.              reflects the absurdity of our time; he asks us to look at
Today, the push for water and other resources can be             where we are, in reference to where we have been.
seen as an extension of that disparity. Aboriginal people
are still forced to compromise on decisions that impact          Within Prince’s works there is also softness and
the health of their Country, their communities and their         compassion. At his studio, in an aged care facility, Prince
cultural selfhood.                                               resides with his wife Susan. Occasionally the resident aged
                                                                 care pet, a pink and grey cockatoo makes an appearance
From 1968, Equal Wages legislation forged a new set of           amongst the turbulence of Prince’s painted worlds.
horrific circumstances. A senior artist in Kununurra
remarked that, “when we all got laid off, they left us
on the fringes in camps and told us not to worry, that           A shout out to Susan
the government would look after us… that’s where we              Beloved muse
have been ever since”. Many of these issues remain               Thank you for being an integral part of this journey
unresolved; it’s hard to fully understand the layers of
complexity in what is arguably a continued frontier
experience. These are our brutal narratives to own, they         Emilia Galatis – Curator, John Prince
are the history of our nation.                                   Siddon: All Mixed Up
A story within a story, within a global story.

In time                                     Adani, Hawaii, Murray Darling
 In dreams                                   Mr Houston, Amen
 In the heat                                 Animated confrontation
 Springs a mirage                            Lost or found in translation
 Eyes sting
 TV                                          Coal in the courtroom
 Magic                                       Come on in
 Myth                                        Koala, what you rekon?
 Reality                                     Lost, broken, found, rebuilt
 Sublime nature of our beings                Dead, not forgotten
 Rotten depths of our cores
 Crying birds                                Echo’s softly across
 Within the vines                            Screaming soft
 These are hot                               We all mixed up
 And desperate times                         True
                                             Not a reason to be blue
 Cameras shatter in the heat                 The lizards rattling in the roof
 Blisters form on novice feet                Remind me
 Watching real movies                        Always was, always will be
 Dead volunteers
 Bandaged and ravaged baby bears
                                             Emilia Galatis, John Prince Siddon
                                             (2020)

Fremantle Arts Centre acknowledges the Whadjuk people of the
Noongar nation as the traditional owners, spiritual and cultural
custodians of the greater Fremantle/Walyalup area.

                                                            Fremantle Arts Centre is supported by the State
                                                            Government through the Department of Local
                                                            Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.